Volume 1

The gardens and menagerie of the Zoological Society delineated / published with the sanction of the Council, under the superintendence of the secretary and vice-secretary of the society.

  • Zoological Society of London
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The gardens and menagerie of the Zoological Society delineated / published with the sanction of the Council, under the superintendence of the secretary and vice-secretary of the society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a small folio, in the year 1622, and reprinted, three years aftemards, in the fourth part of “ Purchas his Pilgrims.” This hardy and adventurous seaman ap¬ pears, notwithstanding the somewhat contemptuous manner in which he speaks of the “ princes and nobles” that “laie waite” for these skins, to have been much of the same opinion with regard to their superior quality and comfort. It is worthy of remark that he treats them not as wool, in which light Acosta seems to have regarded them, but as fur. “ Amongst others,” he says, (showing, by the by, as little respect for the niceties of grammar as the translator above quoted), “they have little beastes, like unto a squirrell, but that hee is grey, his skinne is the most delicate soft and curious furre that I have seene, and of much estimation, (as is reason,) in the Peru; few of them come into Spaine, because difficult to be come by, for that the princes and nobles laie waite for them, they call this beast Chinchilla, and of them they have great abundance.” In the foregoing quotations the Chinchilla is only said to be like a Squirrel: later writers appear to have confounded them. Thus when Alonso de Ovalle, another Spaniard, whose “ Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Chili” was published at Rome in 1646, says that “ the Squirrels [Ardas] which are found only in the Valley of Guasco, are ash-coloured, and their skins are in great esteem for the fineness and softness of the fur,” he evidently means the Chinchilla; for no species of Squirrel, whose fur is of any value, is found in that country. The same may also be said of an anonymous Italian author, (considered by some biblio¬ graphers, but we believe erroneously, to have been the Abbe Vidaure), who published at Bologna in 1776 a Compendium of the Geographical, Natural, and Civil B 2